Friday, February 03, 2006

Grumble, grumble, Uncle Sam, grumble...

I recently put all my tax info into a web-based Turbo-Tax program, since I want to get my taxes finished and filed by end of next week. And I was not a happy camper when I came to the end of the program and discovered I would be getting back a little less than half of what I automatically paid out to the govt from my weekly paychecks. So I had a discussion with my parents in which I was trying to figure out whether I should fork out the money for a CPA, or something like H&R Block to get more money back. When I'd finished explaining everything, my dad started laughing and said, "Allison, you're talking about the govt taking approximately 8.5-9% out of your total earnings from 2005...just wait until they're taking 25% of your yearly earnings!"

Evidently, I have become too used to getting everything back the past three years I was a graduate student, because as it turns out, Uncle Sam does get to claim its "fair share" of my hard-earned money!

Next January, for this tax year 2006, I'll get everything back given that I'm only working 6 weeks of it in the US...although that brings up a whole new can of worms, since I've no idea what I do about declaring foreignly earned money. Hmmm.

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